1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to transfer wheel of a compact sorter for copy machine, and more particularly to a transfer wheel mounted at side plate near the inclined middle portion of the slot liner extending toward the ejecting section of the copy machine and adapted for sequentially transferring the bin trays for receiving copies.
2. Description of The Prior Art
Generally, a known sorter for copy machine has been provided with a slot liner and a transfer wheel in order to sequentially transfer bin trays each having a pair of pin trays an adapted for separately receiving copies.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,328,963 disclosed a sorter for copy machine provided with a circular transfer wheel having a slot, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,379,361 and 4,466,608 respectively disclosed another types of sorters each provided with a circular transfer wheel having first and second slots arranged along a diameter of said transfer wheel and extending radially inward from a circumference of said transfer wheel. In the known sorters of these types, the bin tray was generally transferred upwardly and downwardly along the vertical linear slot liner within the radius of gyration of the transfer wheel so that there might be a certain gap between the bin tray and the ejecting section of the copy machine. Therefore, it has been noted that this type of sorter had the structural disadvantage of requiring an auxiliary units for stably receiving the copies from the ejecting section of the copy machine.
In an effort for solving the above-mentioned disadvantages, there has been proposed a compact sorter provided with a slot liner having an inclined portion as disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 90-855 which was applied by this applicant. However, this type of sorter also had the disadvantage of requiring the relatively larger power for smoothly driving the conventional circular transfer wheel, further of generating the noise.
Therefore, this applicant has also proposed a sorter provided with a transfer wheel having an improved structure as disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 90- 15,404. The transfer wheel of this type of sorter had a pair of partially elliptic surfaces each provided around the portion of the slot in order to reduce the noise and the load, as shown in accompanying drawings, FIGS. 1A and 1B. However, it has been noted that there were disadvantages of spending a long time for separating the copies so that it could separate copies only two times during one rotation of the transfer wheel, and necessary of an auxiliary units for usually urging the bin tray upwardly, such as a spring and the like.
Also, Korean Patent Application No. 90-18264 disclosed a sorter provided with a transfer wheel having three slots instead of the above-mentioned transfer wheel having two slots, as shown in FIG. 2, the sorter of this type could carry out one transferring operation for the bin tray during one third cycle of rotation of the transfer wheel as a result of the three slots each arranged at every 120.degree. on the transfer wheel and extending radially inward from a circumference of said transfer wheel, and also transfer slowly and upwardly another lower waiting bin tray according to the driving rate of the transfer wheel because the transfer wheel was provided with involute portions each formed at sections which might contact with the pin tray of the bin tray so that a waiting pin tray could be smoothly and naturally located within the radius of gyration of said transfer wheel. Thus, this type of transfer wheel could be applied to various types of sorters provided with biasing units for urging the bin tray upwardly, said biasing units using a spring, a wire, a rack or a supporting mechanism.
However, the above-mentioned type of sorter had the transfer wheel comprising an integrally formed rotator and the slots formed on the rotator so that it could not secure an effect as well as that of the sorter disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 90-15,404 during the operations of upward and downward movements of the bin tray. Furthermore, there has been a disadvantage of enlarging the noise because of adding a noise generated while a bin tray seated on the upper portion of the transfer wheel was instantaneously received in a slot of said transfer wheel to the noise generated by the overload during driving said transfer wheel.
In addition, Japanese Patent No. sho. 60-232,370 disclosed a sorter provided with a transfer wheel having a pair of slots each comprising two slot surfaces, a first surface comprising a circular slot surface and a second surface comprising a protrusion adapted for picking up the pin tray and formed as protruding out of the radius of gyration of said circular surface at a part of the thick of said transfer wheel. However, this type of transfer wheel also had disadvantages that it required an auxiliary cam device for driving the protrusion, and a tension spring for urging the bin tray upwards. Furthermore, it has been noted that there was another disadvantages of overload during urging upward the pin tray picked up by the slot and necessary of an auxiliary driving device for driving the bin tray to move horizontally during receiving the copies.